Sunday, April 22, 2007

Kelly, Megan, and I went out on Friday night. Here are a few pictures of us hanging out at a restaurant. Megan and Kelly's favorite past time is to make fun of me so they can sit at a restaurant all night long just to harass me!

Kelly and I

Megan and I

Kimchee and Tofu

Here is a picture of us coming home! Friday night I meet up with Megan and Kelly. I wanted to see if we could all fit and we did!!

Thursday, April 19, 2007

"Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will."Ephesians 1:4-5

An Excerpt from "Do You Think I am Beautiful? By Angela Thomas pg. 46-47 You and I have been made by God, for God. The part of us that aches to be filled is the soul, and your soul was made for His presence.

By design, the fullness that we long for will never be found without the presence of God in our lives. Not just a nodding presence, mind you, but an intimate, personal relationship. A living, vital exchange of love and mutual pleasure. This is not a casual glance toward spirituality. What I am talking about is a yearning that takes us beyond shallow religiosity and into the depths of pursuing the God of all creation....the Holy One...the Lover of your soul.

God did not mean for the canyon inside your heart to remain empty...that is the place He has planned to fill, to make whole, with His love.

But God also made us relational. We have been made to long for others, giving and receiving love and intimacy. It's just that we have lost perspective. We've misunderstood the design. Wholeness comes from God, not from any other relationship or thing or feeling. Don't get me wrong. Relationships, things, and feeling are great. As a matter of fact, they can be wonderful. It's jut that all by themselves, they will never fill you up, they will never be enough to make you whole.

Remember? You have been made by God, for God, and apart from Him there will always be emptiness in your soul.

I have been struggling with this very thing for a month or more. I have been feeling God is far from me and that He had forsaken me. I finally revealed my struggles to a close friend and she challenged me to once again spend time in the Word and meditation even if I didn't feel like it. I came across this in my study this morning and it spoke to my heart. God desires and longs to fill the empty place in my heart. I must seek after Him and only Him and He will fill my soul up. Praise the Lord!!!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I received this E-card received from my church in America last week. I am unable to express in words the gratitude I have for their gift of $3500. I served at Emmaus out of love for my God and the people there. I believe the Lord has blessed me with the gift of giving and it brings me joy to serve others.

I used the money to pay off one big credit card and two smaller ones. I am slowly working and paying this debt off. God has been good and blessing me beyond my need! We serve an amazing God!

This Saturday I experienced some Korean cultural. I went to a planned event just for foreigners. We experienced all the main aspects of Korean culture. The first thing we did was learn to use the traditional Korean drums the Janggoo. It was very difficult but fun. You know I don't have any rhythm so that is what made it difficult.

There were about 30 or 35 foreign teachers there. I have not seen any or met any of them since I have been here. I think they are hiding! I knew 5 of the 30 or 35 teachers because we all came from the same school or my church. It was funny because we all pretty much stuck in our small groups from our schools. I think Korea is rubbing off on us. Koreans don't mix with people they don't know unless someone they do know introduces them. It is an interesting part of the culture.

Next we experienced a tea ceremony. It seems that everything is steeped in their religion here. The instructor told us that we would experience the tea with all 5 senses.

We would use our ears to hear the water pouring, our eyes to see the color of the tea, we would touch the warmth of the pottery, and smell as well as taste the tea! We were suppose to put away our cameras because we would interrupt the ceremony, we didn't listen. I think it was mainly because we didn't believe in the spiritualism of the tea ceremony or it could be we were all foreigners wantign pictures to post on our blogs! The lady even told us that we couldn't wash the cups or pot with soap because it was alive and we would hurt it.

Me and my cup of green tea! I am not a huge fan of green tea but the ceremony was fun.

We each got a chance to be the host. It is actually very difficult. Yo have to remember a certain order to do everything. Here are the steps in brief.

1. Pour water from a tea pot into the white bowl with the spot

2. Pour the water from the bowl into each cup. You start with your cup first and then go counterclockwise warming each cup. You start with your cup first because it will get colder faster.

3. Then you place tea into the pot. You then pour more water from the tea kettle into the white tea pot.

4. While the tea is steeping you pour out the water from the tea cups into the grey bowl. Starting with your cup first to keep the others as warm as long as possible.

5. Then you pour a small amount of tea into you cup to check the color. If the color is okay then you start pouring a small amount into each cup.

6. After that you pass each person a cup starting with the oldest to the youngest. This process begins the next time you want have another cup of tea.

I liked the ceremony but I prefer to boil some water and throw a bag of Lipton in a cup. If I am feeling a little wild I use Celestial Seasonings Nutcracker Sweet Holiday Tea!

We were also able to take part in a traditional wedding. I did not volunteer but it was fun to watch.

The final thing we did was make the famous traditional food for the town I live in. It is called Jeonju Biminbop.

This is what the final product turned out like. We had our own "Jamie Oliver" pictured above.

Not sure if you noticed the raw egg in the picture up top but Claudine and I could not handle the raw egg that was "suppose" to cook with the hot rice. We fried our eggs and made our own version of the famous Jeonju Biminbop.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

On Sunday we had a joint service with the Chinese Fellowship. We had a sermon which was translated by Chloe. She is 17 and knows English, Korean, and Chinese! We also played games and had a wonderful dinner together. Here are a few pictures.

My mom and dad have ordered that I send them a picture when I am dressed up. If you know me I do not like to dress up. I wore a dress to church on Easter Sunday. Here are a few pictures I took. Please cast your vote on which one I should send to them parents.

If you don't really like any of them that is okay too! I can try again at another time.

On Saturday I went to Gunsan with my pastor's family and Claudine. We had a blast and here are a few pictures from the trip. This is the town that my pastor's wife, Sunny, grew up in. My Uncle Eldon was also stationed here in the 80's. It is a beautiful place and I am looking forward to my week off to explore more of Korea.

Monday, April 02, 2007

I was in a bookstore at a bus terminal in Seoul over vacation and I saw 4 different books written by John Piper. I was shocked and excited at the same time. If I ever reach a point where I can understand his writing while I am in Korea I know exactly where I can go to get one of his books! I thought some of you from Minneapolis might find this pretty interesting.

This week I am baking or cooking with all of my classes. Each class got to chose what they wanted to make. I will be making biscuits and gravy, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, Italian chicken and potatoes, and Spaghetti. Here are a few pictures from my first day of cooking.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone said I was crazy to bake with my kids class. I have 10 kids ranging in age from 9 to11. They were so good. They did a better job at baking than my adult class! There peanut butter cookies were great too.

You might be curious as to what yellow dust, Cherry blossoms, and Spring have in common. For the last two week I have been sick with a sinus infection and a terrible cough. I went to the doctor after being sick for a week. He gave me some medication but it didn't help. After staying up all night Friday coughing I went to another doctor Saturday morning with my pastor's wife as my interpreter. This doctor knew what he was doing. He did a chest x-ray to make sure my lungs were okay since I had been coughing for so long. My lungs were okay for now. He said I might be developing asthma, I sure hope not.

Now for the yellow dust, Cherry blossoms, and Spring part!! Every Spring yellow sand comes from the Gobi desert in China and covers all of Korea. It is so bad at times the entire sky is yellow. It was like this yesterday but I did not have my camera with me! The dust is so bad you can taste it when you are outside.

In addition to the yellow dust Korea has many Cherry trees. The Cherry trees were planted in Korea during the Japanese invasion. The Cherry blossoms are beautiful but they wreak havoc on your allergies. In the picture below you can see the Cherry blossoms as well as the haze from the yellow dust.